Equitable Eclecticism - Part 2

(Continuing the presentation of a slightly updated version of my 2010 essay Equitable Eclecticism:  The Future of New Testament Textual Criticism)

Competing Analytical Approaches

In the Byzantine Priority view, Greek manuscripts which display the Byzantine Text are considered superior witnesses on the grounds that their text has a plausible transmission-history.  Pick any series of readings in the Byzantine Text, and it can be shown to have considerable manuscript support.  The Nestle-Aland compilation, meanwhile, is considered a “test-tube text,” because it often combines readings in a series that is unattested in any Greek manuscript.  And although it has been argued that this is unavoidably what one gets when selecting variants from among different text-types, the point remains that a heavy burden of proof should be upon the compiler whose work implies a transmission-history in which no copyists have preserved the original combination of readings in hundreds of passages.
On the other end of the spectrum, the approach used by Hort may seem like something very different from Byzantine Priority, but in terms of methodology the two approaches are similar:  Hort regarded a specific set of manuscripts as superior to all others (in this case, Codex Vaticanus and whatever allies Hort could find for it), and he built a transmission-model that vindicated its readings.  Having established Vaticanus as the best overall witness in a relatively small series of contests, Hort gave it enormous weight, with the result that its text just kept getting better and better, as more and more contests were decided by “the weight of the witnesses” – to the point that long segments of Hort’s compilation resemble transcripts of Codex Vaticanus.      

Two other approaches were developed by textual critics in the 1900’s by scholars aspiring to produce an eclectic text (that is, a text obtained via the utilization of a variety of sources).

Thoroughgoing Eclecticism (also known as Rigorous Eclecticism) values the relative intrinsic qualities of rival variants as the best means to determine their relationships, effectively rejecting Hort’s axiom.  In this approach, even if a reading appears exclusively in late witnesses, if its intrinsic qualities are judged to be better than its rivals, it is adopted, on the premise that its young supporters echo an older text – the autograph – at that point. 
Building on the theory that text-types did not stabilize until the 200’s or later, thoroughgoing eclectics resort to the only sort of reconstruction which can be undertaken without appealing to the relationships of text-types:  the relationships of rival variants.  Advocates of this approach tend to be more willing to introduce conjectural emendations, if an emendation possesses superior intrinsic qualities to its rival extant variants. 

Reasoned Eclecticism (also known as Rational Eclecticism), in theory, considers the relative intrinsic qualities of rival variants, but also considers the quality of each variant’s sources, their date, and their scope.  The text of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament was compiled using a form of reasoned eclecticism.  However, in its companion-volume, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger’s comments show that the quality of sources tended to be measured according to Hort’s model of transmission-history.  In The Text of the New Testament, Metzger wrote, “Theoretically it is possible that the Koine text” – that is, the Byzantine Text – “may preserve an early reading which was lost from the other types of text, but such instances are extremely rare.”  This anti-Byzantine bias is pervasive.  It is no surprise, therefore, that the UBS text varies only slightly from Hort’s text, even though more evidence in favor of Byzantine readings is available to researchers than ever before.  (For more on this subject seem my four-part essay, The Text of Reasoned Eclecticism:  Is it Reasonable and Eclectic?)

  

An alternative is Equitable Eclecticism, in which the relative intrinsic qualities of rival variants are considered, and each variant’s sources, their date, and their scope are also considered.  Equitable Eclecticism begins by developing a generalized model of transmission-history, and estimates of the relative values of the readings of groups, through a five-step process:

            ● First, the witnesses are organized into groups which share distinctive variants.

            ● Second, variant-units involving variants distinct to each group are analyzed according to text-critical principles, or canons.   

            ● Third, a tentative model of transmission-history is developed, cumulatively explaining the relationships of the competing groups to one another by explaining the relationships of their component-parts where distinctive variants are involved.  This model of transmission-history utilizes the premise that the earliest stratum of the Byzantine Text of the Gospels (echoed by Family Π, the Peshitta, Codex A, part of Codex W, the Gothic version, and the Purple Codices N-O-Σ-Φ) arose without the involvement of witnesses that contained the Alexandrian, Western, or Caesarean texts.  Even readings supported by a higher stratum of the Byzantine Text and not by the lowest one are not rejected automatically. 

            ● Fourth, values are assigned to groups rather than to individual witnesses.  Less dependence by one group upon another group, as implied cumulatively by the relationship of its variants to the rival variants in other groups, yields a higher assigned value.

            ● Fifth, all reasonably significant variant-units (those which make a translatable difference) are analyzed according to text-critical canons, using all potentially helpful materials, including readings that are not characteristic of groups.  When internal considerations are finely balanced and a decision is difficult, special consideration is given to readings attested by whatever group appears to be the least dependent upon the others in the proximity of the difficult variant-unit.       

This will yield the archetype of all groups, albeit with some points of instability (at especially difficult variant-units) and with a degree of instability in regard to orthography.

 

Additional Principles

Equitable Eclecticism, besides rejecting the theory that the Byzantine Text was formed entirely via a consultation of manuscripts containing Alexandrian and Western readings, utilizes some additional principles which set it apart from the kinds of textual criticism which produced the revised text and its modern-day representatives:

1.  Textual criticism is a science, not an art.  It is an enterprise of reconstruction, not creation.

2.  The text of the New Testament should be reconstructed in its component-parts:  the Gospels, and Acts, and the General Epistles, and the Pauline Epistles, and Revelation. 

3.  Relationships shown by patterns of readings in one part of the New Testament should not be assumed to exist in the others.

4.  The genealogical descent of a group of manuscripts from an ancestor-manuscript other than the autograph is not assumed without actual evidence that establishes links among specific manuscripts (such as shared formats, shared marginalia, shared miniatures, or readings which conclusively show a historical connection).

5.  Variants involving nomina sacra are placed in a special class, and receive special attention.

6.  The assumption of preference for the shorter reading is rejected.

7.  If a variant has very sporadic support from witnesses greatly separated by age and textual character, this may indicate that the variant was liable to be spontaneously created by copyists, rather than that it was transmitted by distant transmission-streams.

8.  Exceptional intrinsic merit is required for the adoption of variants attested exclusively or nearly exclusively by bilingual manuscripts in which a Greek variant may have originated via retro-translation.

9.  Conjectural emendations are not to be placed in the text. 

           

Equitable Eclecticism also utilizes principles shared by other approaches.  These principles are all superseded by Principle Zero:  no principle should be applied mechanically.

1.  A variant which explains its rivals with greater elegance and force than it is explained by any of them is more likely to be original.
2.  A variant supported by witnesses representing two or more locales of early Christendom is more likely to be original than a variant supported by witnesses that represent only one locale.
3.  A variant which can be shown to have had, in the course of the transmission of the text, the appearance of difficulty (either real or imagined), and which is rivaled by variants without such difficulty, is more likely than its rivals to be original.
4.  A variant supported by early attestation is more likely to be original than a rival variant supported exclusively by late attestation.
5.  A variant which conforms a statement to the form of a similar statement in a similar document, or in the same document, is less likely to be original than a rival variant that does not exhibit conformity.
6.  A variant which involves a rare, obscure, or ambiguous term or expression is more likely to be original than a rival variant which involves an ordinary or specific term or expression.
7.  A variant which is consistent with the author's discernible style and vocabulary is more likely to be original than a rival variant which deviates from the author's usual style and vocabulary and the vocabulary which he may naturally be expected to have been capable of using.
8.  A variant which is fully explained as a liturgical adjustment is less likely to be original than a rival variant which cannot be thus explained.

9.  A variant which is capable of expressing anti-Judaic sentiment is less likely to be original than a rival variant which is less capable of such expression.

10.  A variant which can be explained as an easy transcriptional error is less likely to be original than a rival variant which cannot be explained as an easy transcriptional error or as one which would be less easily made.     

11.  A variant which can be explained as a deliberate alteration is less likely to be original than a rival variant which is less capable of originating in the same way.

12.  Ceteris paribus, in the Synoptic Gospels, a variant which does not result in a Minor Agreement is more likely to be original than a rival variant which results in a Minor Agreement.

Closing Thoughts

Christian readers may feel intimidated or exasperated at the realization that the original text of the New Testament can only be fully reconstructed by a careful analysis of the witnesses – a massive and intricate task which currently involves no less than 135 papyri, about 320 uncials, about 2,900 minuscules, and about 2,450 lectionaries, plus versional and patristic materials.  The feeling may be increased when one also realizes that even the most erudite textual critics have reached divergent conclusions, and that their conclusions must be subject to the implications of future discoveries.

This may lead some readers to decline to investigate the text, deciding instead to hopefully adhere to whatever text (or texts) they already use.  Such an expedient response is understandable, especially in light of the often-repeated (but false) claim that textual variants have no significant doctrinal impact.  Nevertheless, for those few who are not content to place their confidence in textual critics, or to posit providential favor upon a particular set of variants on account of its popularity or for other reasons, the best option is to become textual critics.
Becoming acquainted with the contents of the manuscripts and other witnesses gives additional responsibility, but also additional confidence, somewhat like the confidence of a traveler who knows his maps, as opposed to one who does not and must trust his guides.  

Knowing the message of the map that we have – and being aware of which parts are still questioned, and why, concerning how closely their form corresponds to the form of the original – makes one a confident traveler where one should be confident, and cautious where one should be cautious.  But after we have done our best to conduct research with scientific detachment, it will do us little good if we only possess the map.  Let us walk in the path that the Holy Spirit reveals to us through the Word.  With that thought I leave the reader to consider the words of J. A. Bengel, one of the pioneers of New Testament textual criticism:

   

Te totum applica ad textum:

rem totam applica ad te.

Apply all of yourself to the text,

Apply it all to yourself.

The Kloha-Montgomery Debate - Some More Thoughts

          In the recent Kloha-Montgomery Debate, John Warwick Montgomery described thoroughgoing eclecticism as incompatible with the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy.  What is thoroughgoing eclecticism?  Jeff Kloha, quoting J. Keith Elliott, described it as “the method that allows internal considerations for a reading’s originality to be given priority over documentary considerations.”  An illustrative example of thoroughgoing eclecticism in practice can be found in Kloha’s essay, “Elizabeth’s Magnificat,” in the 2014 volume, Texts & Traditions:  Essays in Honour of J. Keith Elliott (beginning on page 200).

          In that essay, Kloha offers a cumulative case for the theory that the original text of Luke 1:46 had neither the name “Mary” nor “Elizabeth” but only “And said” (Και ειπεν).  This would imply, as I mentioned in the previous post, that (1) all the known Greek manuscripts of Luke contain a scribal corruption at this point, and (2) it was Elizabeth, rather than Mary, who spoke the Magnificat.

 

A page from Codex
Vercellensis (late 300s)

        The external evidence that Kloha amasses, though sparse, has considerable weight.  In two copies of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, Book 4 (7:1), the Magnificat is attributed to Elizabeth, although in other copies, and in Book 3 (10:2), the Magnificat is assigned to Mary.  If these two copies accurately preserve the text of Irenaeus’ composition then they appear to echo the text of Luke 1:46 in Irenaeus’ text of Luke 1:46, at least in one manuscript known to him in the mid/late 100s.  A few Old Latin manuscripts likewise support the presence of Elizabeth’s name in the text of Luke 1:46 – including Codex Vercellensis, a manuscript which, according to an ancient tradition, was made by (or under the supervision of) Eusebius of Vercelli in the 370’s.  (If that is so, then this witness is only slightly younger than the famous Codex Sinaiticus.) 

          In addition, in Jerome’s Latin translation of Origen’s commentary on the Gospel of Luke, we find this statement from Jerome embedded in the comments on Luke 1:46:  “In a certain number of manuscripts, we have discovered that blessed Mary is said to prophesy.  We are not unaware of the fact that, according to other copies of the Gospel, Elizabeth speaks these words in prophecy.”

          A little-known contemporary of Jerome named Nicetas of Remesiana (335-414), who read both Latin and Greek, and who was known for his hymn-writing, attributed the Magnificat to Elizabeth.    

          Montgomery argued, “The fact that these authorities are earlier than the authoritative Greek texts (Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, early to mid 4th century) is hardly a strong argument for the Elizabeth attribution, since they are non-Greek versions/translations and contradict the Greek texts.”  Montgomery thus does three things:
(1)  he decides that in this case, an older witness should be given less weight than a younger witness,

(2)  he decides that a non-Greek witness should be given less weight than a Greek witness, and

(3)  he decides that patristic evidence is less important than manuscript evidence. 

          Via all three points, Montgomery employs internal evidence as the means by which to gauge the relative weight of the components of external evidence – that is, Montgomery is resorting to a consideration of internal factors even though he proposed that one should “only use the internal considerations where they’re absolutely necessary.”  Why should the second-century composition of a Greek-writer such as Irenaeus, be given less weight than two manuscripts produced 150 years later?  Why should Latin evidence be minimized, unless one can show that it was derived from some non-Greek source or was the result of mistranslation?  Why think that a Latin translator detoured from the meaning of his Greek text?  Why assume that the manuscripts used by a patristic writer in the late 300s (Nicetas) would be less accurate than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus?  Why should manuscripts known to Jerome be considered lightweight? 

          Perhaps there are sound answers to all these questions – but to downplay them because they imply that “the Greek texts” contain a scribal corruption is to pretend as if our present situation (in which all the Greek manuscripts affirm that Mary spoke the Magnificat) is the same as the situation in the 300s and 400s.  However, the external evidence indicates that if we were to situate our perspective in the fourth century, we could not so easily settle the question via a cavalier appeal to “the Greek texts” because the Greek manuscripts at that time did not all agree in Luke 1:46.  We can either ignore this external evidence (as if disagreement with the Nestle-Aland compilation is a sufficient reason to consider a reading incorrect), or else we can analyze it and evaluate its possible implications.

          Dr. Kloha has taken the second option, in a somewhat tentative way, declaring at the outset of his essay that he was making a suggestion about the text of Luke 1:46.  He reaffirmed this at the debate, stating, when answering a question about his everyday treatment of Luke 1:46, that he never even brought up the text-critical question when teaching lessons from Luke chapters 1-2:  “My judgments by themselves,” he stated, “are not decisive.”     

         This is a longstanding conservative approach to conjectural emendations – Greek readings imagined by the textual critic, which the critic suspects to be original, but which are not extant in any manuscript.  Ever since the 1500s, scholars have made calculated guesses about hypothetical readings which are capable of explaining extant rival readings, especially in passages where such hypothetical readings interlock well with the context.  For example, Erasmus suspected that the original text of James 4:2 might have said “you are jealous” (φθονειτε) instead of “you commit murder” (φονεύετε), in light of the reference to jealousy in 4:5.  (This theory seems to have been adopted by Luther when he made his German translation.) 

          Theodore Beza, similarly, was convinced that in Revelation 16:5, the original text referred to the “One who is, and who was, and shall be,” even though the final phrase is not found in Revelation 16:5 in any Greek manuscript (although it recurs elsewhere in Revelation, such as in 1:8).  Beza’s reasoning apparently was persuasive to the translators of the King James Version, for this conjectural reading is echoed in the KJV’s text of the verse. 

          One would think that Dr. Montgomery, having recommended that textual critics should “only use the internal considerations where they’re absolutely necessary,” would far prefer the conservative approach in which a textual critic may express some conjectural emendations, but does not put them in the printed text, instead deferring to the extant Greek manuscript evidence.  But no.  When observing that Kloha did not insist on advancing his theory about Luke 1:46 as more than a detailed suggestion, however plausible, Montgomery stated, “I find it absolutely disingenuous when you will not follow through on what you wrote in your own article.  If you believed in that article that the better reading, the better text, for the Magnificat, was Elizabeth, you have no business in the world just ignoring the problem now.”

          Suppose, however, that Dr. Kloha, or any textual critic, resolved to turn the Sunday School lesson-hour into a lecture about every textual variant-unit that he considered worth re-examining.  When would the actual lessons ever be taught?  Sunday-school lessons are Sunday-school lessons, and instructors who are aware of many textual issues routinely ignore them, to avoid needlessly throwing their students into the deep end, so to speak.  It is simply more efficient to reserve textual issues to venues specifically focused upon them, unless a specific question is raised.        

          Dr. Montgomery then continued:  “Or it may be, Dr. Kloha, that you give papers in non-confessional contexts that really work very well in those contexts, and then when you come to us, we get this litany of orthodox Lutheran fathers which is supposed to give the impression that the kind of work you’ve done is consistent with Biblical inerrancy.  It isn’t!  It isn’t!”

          At that point, it seems to me, shrill declaration usurped argument.  For not only was Kloha very clear from the first page of his essay that his suggestion is a suggestion, but it should also be perfectly obvious that his suggestion does not imply that Luke made any error.  Furthermore, it is contradictory for Montgomery to claim that Kloha’s suggestion is a grave danger to Biblical inerrancy, one moment, and the next moment, call the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation “a good Greek New Testament.”  For what Kloha has only suggested, the Nestle-Aland compilers have implemented in Acts 16:12 and in Second Peter 3:10:  in both of these passages, a reading has been placed in the text which has no Greek manuscript support.

          Yet the Dr. Montgomery who called Dr. Kloha’s approach inconsistent with Biblical inerrancy is the same person who said that the variants between NA28 and the Textus Receptus are “not materially different from what you’re reading today.”  I remind the reader that those differences consist of over 1,000 translatable points, including the inclusion or exclusion of whole verses, in the Gospels alone.  Does it seen even-handed to observe a change in the printed text from “shall be burned up” to “shall not be found” in Second Peter 3:10, and a change from “Lord” to “Jesus” in Jude verse 5, and a change from “name” to “cause” in First Peter 4:16 (to give just three examples) and say that these differences in the text are “not materially different,” but when Dr. Kloha makes a suggestion about one word, he has done something “on the periphery,” something different than what the compilers of NA28 have done? 

One of Dr. Montgomery's slides.

(I have to agree that Dr. Kloha has indeed done something different:  he has suggested that a reading without Greek manuscript-support is original, while the compilers of NA28 have not merely suggested such a reading; they have inserted such a reading into the text!  Yet Dr. Montgomery looks at Dr. Kloha’s suggestion and concludes that his approach is too subjective and has the consequence of rendering Biblical inerrancy impossible, and then he looks at the work of the compilers at Muenster and says that they seem to be moving toward a more objective approach, “and this is all to the good.” ?!?!) 

It seems to me that nothing that Dr. Kloha wrote in his essay, or expressed at the debate, poses a problem for the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy.  I am not persuaded by his meticulously researched suggestion that there was no proper name in the original text of Luke 1:46, but if someone were persuaded by it, that person would not be obligated to declare Luke to be in error; it would only follow that copyists made a mistake.  

          There is, it seems, only one subject of the debate yet to address:  the question of the “plasticity” of the New Testament text.  God willing, that will be the subject of my next post.